Old and New

Like Egypt, Jerusalem has an ancient history that goes back thousands of years. You can't dig a few meters below the ground without turning up something cool, intensely controversial, and historically significant to at least two religions.

So we took the opportunity to explore.

The view from our hostel:


The Western Wall, holy to Jews as the last remaining part of the ancient Temple:




The Dome of the Rock, holy to Muslims as the place where Muhammad ascended to Heaven:


The Yom Kippur War memorial outside the Old City


Archaeologists dug around the Old City and uncovered an ancient city that dates back to the 1000s BCE, a period of monarchy when kings like David and Solomon ruled. This underground tunnel was used by King Hezekiah to ensure the flow of supplies and water to the city as it was being attacked by invaders, and also might have been an escape route to hide the Ark of the Covenant when the Babylonians sacked the city in 586 BCE.




I think this is when we discovered that the authorities would be closing all borders for the Eid break until an unspecified time, and we could either get stuck in Israel or the West Bank, and possibly have no chance of getting across the border to catch our flight back to Cairo from Amman. Much freaking out ensued as we decided what to do, but eventually we all calmed down and decided to see what actually happened. It turned out not to be a problem at all, as the borders were not closed for the next few days, if at all.